1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a truck material discharge apparatus. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a dump truck attachment for use in road repair.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A variety of factors require periodic roadway surface maintenance. It is necessary to repair road surfaces when holes, cracks or other surface deteriorations appear due to heavy traffic conditions or weather erosion. Each hole in a roadway surface must be filled with roadway repair material so that the hole is plugged and flush with the rest of the roadway surface.
It has been the practice in the prior art to hand shovel a quantity of road repair material from the body of a truck. Considerable manual labor is required in order to repair the roads. As a result, methods of road repair, which reduce the amount of manual labor and facilitate the road repair operation are in demand.
One example of these methods is found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,563,202 to Lentz, which is directed to a road patch material spreader for use on a dump truck. The material spreader is a flat, substantially horizontal shelf that attaches to the back of a dump truck body and extends the width of the body. The shelf is located behind the truck body to receive road repair material from the dump box of a truck. The dump box may be raised to allow gravity to roll the repair material back toward the pan. An agitator shaft expels the repair material.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,253,248 to Palmer is directed to a spreader box attached to the rear of a dump truck to receive repair material from a dump box. The device facilitates the spreading of repair material over a road bed directly from the dump box without the aid of manual labor or from the top of the box by a shovel held by a laborer.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,997,213 to Richards et al. discloses a material discharge control attachment for dispensing a repair mixture on the roadway surface from a dump truck. The attachment is located at the rear of the dump truck and extends the entire width of the dump truck and also to the ground level. It has a number of chutes with doors, which are lifted to allow the material to drop onto the roadway surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,346 to Garden discloses a sand-bagging device which attaches to the rear end of a dump truck for filling up bags with sand or soil from the truck body. The device is related since it attaches to the rear of a truck body and is situated to receive material from the dump box.
The prior art devices have some disadvantages. First, they are difficult to attach to the truck body as they generally require many attachment points along the rear end of the truck. Further, the devices cannot be readily removed or replaced on the truck body.
Another disadvantage is the large size of the prior art devices. Each of the described devices extends the width of the rear of a dump truck body. When they are attached, they are virtually immovable. There may be times when a truck operator will use the truck containment box for purposes other than road repair. In those instances it can be difficult to use the truck since the prior art devices would be in the way of or prevent any other type of use. Further, the cumbersome devices of the prior art impede free movement of the vehicle since it is difficult to drive a truck at normal road speeds with such an attachment.